Do you have a career-readiness roadmap?

As I think about my career journey, I reflect back to my undergraduate experience at the University of Illinois. Similar to many undergraduates at Rollins College, I received an athletic scholarship to attend college and felt as if much of my academic year was divided between academics and athletics.

During the summers of my sophomore and junior years, I completed undergraduate research as a McNair Scholar and participated in a summer internship with the local park district. However, I had not begun to think about my future career plans, or even start to make meaning of my previous experiences in college. It was not until my senior year, when the question was asked, “What are you going to do after graduation in May?”

Now, that question was not posed by an academic or career advisor, or a professor, or mentor, or athletic coach, or even my mother. It was posed by a college boyfriend – and hearing that question, I began to panic. My anxiety was grounded in the realities that I was facing, since I knew I was not going to the Olympics in track and field, I knew I was not marrying this college boyfriend, and I knew I had not begun to think about the answer to his question.

The anxiety I felt when asked about my plans after graduation is not an uncommon experience for today’s undergraduate. With the increasing pressures to obtain employability skills before graduating, combined with the challenges of a competitive job market and navigating the job search process, undergraduates are often intimidated by the idea of career planning. As a result, undergraduates often delay the career preparation process until their senior year.

This anxiety is real, and can have a lasting impact on how graduates perceive their overall college experience. However, by asking undergraduates to engage in the career preparation process earlier in their college journey and providing them with a roadmap of both curricular and co-curricular experiences to explore – we can equip students with invaluable transferable skills and competencies, and the confidence necessary to pursue meaningful lives and productive careers.

I believe a career-readiness roadmap is an integrative process that spans across the four years of an undergraduate experience. Each academic year, undergraduates should devise this roadmap based on academic courses, experiential learning, leadership development, and career exploration practices they plan to pursue. However, the educational and professional development of undergraduates must be a shared responsibility of the entire college community, established by strong partnerships with academic departments, student affairs, career center, alumni and other campus partners. As co-educators, we can help undergraduates understand the value of each curricular and co-curricular experience, and the impact to their career journey.

By following their personal career-readiness roadmap, students have the opportunity to discover their strengths, as well as engage in experiences that will require them to reflect on who they are and how they connect to the world. I now often encourage students to start early in their college career by asking themselves common existential questions, such as “Who am I?” or “What is my purpose in life?” These types of questions are part of the ethos of what it means to be liberally educated and by engaging in the exploration of those answers our students can be career-ready. These experiences over four years will shape their self-understanding and confidence to articulate the transferable skills gain in supporting future endeavors.

As I reflect back on my career journey, I am reminded that my collegiate experiences did not prepare me for my first job out of college, but for many careers throughout my lifetime. We know the journey in life is complex and we must consistently be reassessing what skills are necessary to be successful. Therefore, we want our undergraduates to develop skills and habits that they will utilize throughout their lifetime. No matter which path our students take, we can be confident in knowing that our work has empowered graduates to pursue meaningful lives and productive careers.